You could say that Jephthah’s daughter was wronged by the world, by her father, and by God. But her death has meaning across the millennia.
1. The story of Jephthah’s daughter’s death.
Jephthah was a judge – a leader – of ancient Israel. Surprisingly for a man who rose to that position, he was the son of a prostitute. His story is told in the biblical Book of Judges, starting at chapter 11. One part of his story is the death of his daughter, his only child.
Jephthah and Israel warred with the Ammonites. Jephthah vowed to God that if God gave him victory over the Ammonites, whatever emerged from his door on his return from battle he would sacrifice as a burnt offering. God gave him victory. His daughter emerged from his door to greet him. She emerged dancing.
Jephthah wanted to renege on his vow; his daughter would not let him. Instead, she asked that she be permitted to go up into the mountains for two months with her friends, who mourned with her that she would never marry. Then she returned and submitted to her father’s knife. She became smoke from an alter.
This gave rise to a tradition in Israel. At a certain season, daughters of Israel left for four days to commemorate Jephthah’s daughter.
This was right. These daughters had much to commemorate, much to mourn, for Jephthah’s daughter and themselves.
2. Much to mourn: proxies.
They could mourn because of the Ammonites. The Ammonites are a proxy for all wars, wars that devoured the loved ones of women and devoured women themselves. Maybe the Ammonites, a proxy for war, are also a proxy for all violence against women by strangers. They are a proxy for all such rapes, beatings, and robberies. They are a proxy for the recent attempted assassination of Malala Yousufzai by the Taliban, men who were incensed that a girl such as she should speak out to an international audience against their ban on the education of girls like herself. Malala Yousufzai and Jephthah’s daughter might have been the same age.
The Ammonites, like the Taliban, were an outside force. But Jephthah was no outsider; he was his daughter’s father. So the daughters of Israel could also mourn because of Jephthah. Jephthah’s rash vow led to his daughter’s death. In this way, he is a proxy for all violence against women by the hands of a near person. He is a proxy for incest, intimate rape, beating by a husband or brother. He is a proxy for honor killings, practiced today in some parts of the world.
The daughters of Israel could mourn because of God. Jephthah’s daughter is like Isaac, but also unlike. God told Abraham, Isaac's father, to sacrifice Isaac. But at the last moment, God stopped Abraham’s knife-hand from slicing into the flesh of Isaac. But at the last moment, God did not release Jephthah from his rash vow.
3. Much to mourn: the virtue of Jephthah’s daughter.
The daughters of Israel could mourn because of the death of someone as good as Jephthah’s daughter. Jephthah’s daughter is a Job-like figure. She was virtuous. She did not complain: she plainly saw that Jephthah had to fulfill his vow. She accepted death resolutely.
She had the virtue of Job. In fact, she suffered more deeply than Job. Job’s family, wealth, and health were taken from him. But Job was permitted to live; Jephthah's daughter was not. In this way, everything that was taken from Job was taken from Jephthah’s daughter. She lost her family, she lost the comforts of life. She lost everything that she cherished when she gave herself to her father’s knife.
And calamity fell upon Job. Suddenly it was there. But Jephthah’s daughter submitted to it. She went up into the mountains to mourn with her friends. After two months, the agreed time, she came down from the mountains.
4. Much to mourn: the love of Jephthah’s daughter.
And see who Jephthah’s daughter loved and feared. She loved her father. She accepted death for his sake, so that he would not go back on his vow to God.
She loved her nation. She accepted death for its sake, so that the leader of her nation would not incur guilt on its behalf by going back on a vow to God.
She loved her friends. She chose to prepare to die by going with them up into the mountains for two months to mourn. In a way, this foreshadows the Last Supper, where Jesus had fellowship with his disciples on the night that he knew he would be taken captive to be crucified.
She feared God. She realized that a vow to God had to be respected, had to be fulfilled. God was large to her, larger even than her love of life.
5. The meaning of Jephthah’s daughter: eternity.
There’s more to the story of Jephthah’s daughter than sorrow and love.
The Bible does not say the season when this story took place. But it appears that in Old Testament times there were fighting seasons, as there are in Afghanistan today. In the biblical book of 2 Samuel, the story of King David and Bathsheba is introduced with the phrase, "In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war . . ..." (NIV.) This story took place after that fighting season, when Jephthah returned from war.
Summer is suggested by other circumstances aside from fighting seasons. Jephthah’s daughter and her friends retreated to the mountains for two months. It's likely that the mountains teemed with food; certainly Jephthah's daughter and her friends would not have carried two months worth of food into the mountains.
This meant that Jephthah’s daughter was in the wilderness in the season of nature’s aliveness. On the edge of death, in that two months, maybe she contemplated the seasons, the yearly cycle of life and death in nature. Maybe she saw in this eternal cycle a hope of the renewal of her own life, like the renewal of life in the growing seasons. The succinct biblical narrative does not say.
Jephthah’s daughter is not known by name. I don’t know why. It might be that by the time that the story was written down, her name had been consumed in the forgetfulness of years.
But one thing is certain: she is known to God. And he is the God of the living, not the dead.
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